Love songs fail to save Palestinian marriage after war’s devastating wounds

Seriously injured by an Israeli air strike, Wael Al Namla and his wife Asraah tried to keep their family together, but ultimately failed.

Wael Al Namla at his home in Rafah on July 3. He lost the lower part of his right leg during last summer's war between Israel and Hamas. Heidi Levine for The National

RAFAH // One night last January, Wael Al Namla, 27, and his wife Asraah, 22, sang their favourite love songs as they gently stroked what was left of each other’s amputated limbs to the rhythm of music played on their mobile phones. Small battery powered lights, scattered around the room, illuminated the couple as they gazed at each other during one of the electricity cuts that leaves Gazans without power for several hours every day.

The next morning, after the electricity – temporarily – came back on, the boiler was able to heat enough water that the family could take turns washing themselves. Wael showered first and then a bath was prepared for their four-year-old son, Shareef, who splashed happily in the lukewarm water despite his partially amputated leg.

That morning was a brief moment of domestic tranquillity in the besieged Gaza Strip. Yet, the same wounds that had brought Wael and Asraah closer together during the night ultimately tore their marriage apart.

On August 1, 2014, amid the 50-day conflict between Hamas and Israel, the family attempted to flee Israeli shelling in the town of Rafah, but were hit by an air strike. Wael lost his right leg. Asraah lost both of her legs. Their son Shareef, lost the lower part of his left leg. Their second child, Abeer, now two-years-old, sustained minor injuries and burns. Wael’s 11-year-old sister Nagram and brother Yousef, the sole financial provider for the family, along with his wife, was also killed. Their son Qasay, 9, was orphaned.

The war killed over 2,200 residents of Gaza, and injured more than 11,000. Seventy-three Israelis were also killed.

My contact with the Namla family began on January 20, when I knocked on their door unannounced and asked to stay for several days to document them through photographs. I hoped to use these images as part of my ongoing project looking at how people in Gaza have managed to keep on living after experiencing such unfathomable loss during the conflict.

On July 3, just ahead of the one year anniversary of last summer’s war, I returned to the Namla home. Wael rested the stump of his amputated right leg on a wall in the entrance of his family’s home as he greeted me.

Nearly one year since he was critically injured in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, what is left of his severed limb shakes uncontrollably. It needs to heal more fully before he can be fitted for a prosthetic leg.

Moments later, Shareef quickly stumbled down the stairs, proudly showing off how he has mastered walking with his own prosthetic device, which was recently fitted to his amputated left leg.

I asked Wael about his beloved wife.

“Where is Asraah?”

He turned away and gestured with one of his crutches to follow him up the stairs.

“I am taking another wife,” Wael said once we had reached the living room of the family’s home. “She is 20-years old and will arrive in Gaza from London in October. She is the cousin of my father.”

Trying not to reveal my shock, I asked: “Is this a love marriage?”

Wael, who was sitting across from me in his wheelchair, lifted his lowered head and said, “No, I need help, the war destroyed my life”.

Without her legs, Asraah was unable to carry out tasks traditionally performed by Palestian wives, such as cooking and cleaning, and Wael had decided to take another wife who could.

Angry and hurt, Asraah said that she would not accept her husband taking a second wife and was told by both Wael and his family to return to her parents’ house.

She left without her two children, and also without the 15,000 Jordanian Dinars (Dh77,749) she says was sent to her by a relative in the West Bank city of Nablus to help the family recover from their injuries, and returned to her parents’ home in Gaza City. Asraah had never had this money in her possession as she did not go to the bank to collect it herself.

According to the Palestinian Personal Status law, which is based on Sharia, a man can marry up to four women. But many wives don’t want their husbands to take another wife, and become depressed if they do so, says Amal Syam, director of the Gaza City-based Women’s Affairs Centre.

Men taking second wives is not uncommon in Palestinian society and there is evidence that the practice is increasing.

According to Ms Syam, there has also been an increase in the rate of divorce and domestic violence since the war last summer, as well as a trend of women getting married at an earlier age to reduce the financial burden on families as the rate of unemployment in Gaza soars.

The Women’s Affairs Centre is conducting workshops to teach women how to add a clause into their marriage contracts so that they can be granted a divorce if their husband takes a second wife.

Despite this, however, it is rare for women in Gaza to risk losing their children by seeking a divorce, and many will stay married regardless of such a clause.

In Palestinian society, the woman is considered the primary source of strength of the family, Ms Syam said. “Now that Asraah is disabled, it is as if society does not regard her as a whole woman. “Therefore, her husband [is seen as having] an even stronger right to take a second wife — after all, he needs someone to help him.”

The Women’s Affairs Centre is currently advising 140 women disabled in last summer’s war on their legal rights and their rehabilitation that includes teaching them new vocations.

Not long after visiting Wael, I went to Asraah’s parents’ home in Gaza City. She smiled as she pushed her wheelchair close to me and asked about her two children.

Asraah said she has learnt from her mother, Sabri Yassen, that Shareef has been told that his mother is dead. Ms Yassen is the sister of Wael’s mother and the two women are also now not speaking to each other.

“I heard that my son Shareef was told that I am dead, I am not dead, I am wounded,” said Asraah, angry at what had became of her marriage.

Palestinian psychologist Hassan Zeyada, who works at the Gaza Community Mental Health Centre in Gaza City, said that the effect of the war on Gazan marriages had to be understood “in the whole context of [the Palestinian territory] and all of the aspects that have been affecting the people since the Second Intifada, including high levels of stress, a life under siege, and the reoccurrence of military invasions during the last three wars with Israel”.

“Under normal circumstances when one feels despair and frustration, one would be able to express this frustration towards the source, Israel,” Mr Zeyada explained. “But instead, the anger is being taken out on wives, children, or [the men themselves, inwardly], resulting in physical problems such as fatigue and psychological consequences.”

“The people in Gaza do not have a proper coping mechanism and the Namla family is an example of the consequences [of this],” added Mr Zeyada, who himself lost family members during the conflict last summer.

Asraah’s case was brought before a family court in the Gazan town of Khan Younis on July 12th and the court ordered her husband to pay her 50 Jordanian dinars (Dh259.15) a month, and allow her to see her two children for three to four hours every two weeks. Asraah’s family is also asking the court to force her husband to pay for a caregiver to help with her disability, and for money to buy furniture. It is unclear how Wael will be able to pay the money since his brother Yousef, the only family member with a job, was killed in the Israeli strike.

However, Asraah’s lawyer Meyer Krista said he fears it will be difficult to prove that her husband’s family stole the money that was given to her by her relative.

The morning after my arrival at Asraah’s parents’ house, she woke up after staying up nearly half the night with the other women in the family, watching Egyptian films on television and eating ice cream and pretzels like teenagers at a slumber party. She smiled and stretched her arms before glancing down at her body and then looked at me, eyes wide with fear. 
It was as if her war wounds were still fresh.

* Heidi Levine is a photojournalist based in Jerusalem. She is a frequent contributor to The National.